HR Capability Builder

The HR Business Partner (HRBP) model remains popular, despite many organizations reporting challenges with its execution. The HRBP position was originally designed to add business acumen and consultative skills in HR, requiring the gravitas of a skilled business professional combined with line of business (operational) experience, financial prowess, and HR acumen.

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But too often, organizations implement the HRBP role with little more than a title change and without:

Discussing how generalists can acquire the skills needed to take on new responsibilities

Removing existing administrative tasks from their job

Sometimes, companies have acknowledged they need to improve the skills of HRBPs, but do not have the resources to do so. In Mercer’s 2016 Global Talent Trends Study, only 13% of organizations reported having a systemic curriculum in place for the development of HR professionals. The good news is that over one third plan to invest in HR development in the next year.

Just as the rest of the organization needs the right talent with the right skills in order to succeed, the HR function also depends on its talent to deliver its full value. By aligning HR roles and competencies to the company’s overall workforce needs, assessing the skills and skill gaps within the function, and developing HR talent accordingly, organizations can eliminate a major impediment to HR effectiveness.

Mercer’s HR Capability Builder™ is a consulting approach, with a supporting technology, that enables an organization to assess, place and develop the HR staff critical to support the organization. It answers the following questions:

HR Capability Builder uses Mercer’s best practice HR competency model as a basis to assess HR’s current skill levels against what is required to best support the organization. Once the skill gaps are identified, Mercer partners with the HR organization to design and deliver a program to develop the competencies necessary to align HR with organizational goals, and to measure progress over time.